Not who goes home (no idea about that, and I don't want to know) , but something that has the potential to explode all over the internet (depending on how CBS decides to show it). I'm kind of surprised that it took this long to get to me, considering that this season was filmed over a year ago. But apparently this has been "known to the Survivor community" for quite some time, and just now coming out as a "heads up".

Obviously, I'm not going to reveal it here. BUt I'll respond to emails of anyone interested.

I think it's interesting though that we are completely at the mercy of what CBS decides to show, and how they edit the event. Because that is going to be informing how people see what happens. It's how they are going to digest it, and how they will be reacting to it on the internet.

What is in CBS's "best interests"? Not showing it at all? Showing as much as possible and hoping for a huge social media reaction, even if it's a negative one.

They used to say there is no such thing as bad press. But with social media, I'm not sure that's true anymore.

I guess we will see how it plays out - but again, it's a good reminder that with an edited program - sure, they can only show what you give them (with reality shows) but at the end of the day, someone has to make that call on who to make the good guy and who to make the bad guy... and nuance has a habit of flying out the window.

I've seen that in Idol itself in the past, where people get ideas about other people and just keep building up their personal narratives.

I see it in "Real Life" where the same thing happens.

We are all our personal editors, telling our own stories about what is happening in the world around us.

Hm. Do people still care about "Survivor?" Not really, according to Nielsen. It hasn't been a top ten show in a decade and it hasn't even cracked the top twenty since 2011! It seems weird that it's been on for over thirty seasons, since it only started seventeen years ago. but I guess there was a fall season and a spring season.

Really, they could do up to nine a year if they planned them out in advance so I suppose I shouldn't complain. I mean, they could film up to nine a year... it would take about what? Twenty weeks to run them - So, if we could squeeze in three double episodes a season, we could just fit three seasons into a calendar year. That would be tough to watch, even for a Survivor Addict!

I haven't watched the show at all in about five seasons and I haven't watched with any regularity in maybe ten. Obviously the "office jungle" elements still have appeal, especially to the folks who work in a cubicle farm. That's the target demographic for the ultimate schadenfreude the game never fails to serve up. For me, the competitions for reward or immunity lost their appeal, and the contestants changed too. It's the "meta" element of any reality show that likely is unavoidable. After it's been on awhile, you start to notice what is "expected" of a contestant and then contestants begin doing those things as a part of the process. This element was particularly notable in the long running MTV series "The Real World," where housemates started doing outrageous things, being overtly promiscuous and/or having hair trigger explosive reactions to nearly anything. But certainly "Survivor" has a similar issue at least some of the time with the fake friendships and the backstabbing/double cross blindside moves that are a requisite of the game.

The truth is, all reality shows have an element of editing in them as far as the story goes, which is what makes them so weird. The program producers can take the raw footage and clip and cut it to make it appear however they want (presumably within reason) and, if nothing else, that can affect the dramatic tension of any moment, but on a more personal level, can change how a player is perceived by the audience. I'm certain that the production team on "Survivor," having done this sort of thing more often than any other program, are the best at pulling this off with subtlety and believability.

The problem, of course, is that a sophisticated audience like the ones watching now (as opposed to the ones watching the original Borneo season who probably never even thought about how the program was assembled) are now very aware of the editing element and know they can be manipulated into feeling a particular way about a castaway and what they do/don't do.

I've been wracking my brain to imagine what it is you're talking about. The only thing I can come up with is that during a competition, someone found a way to cheat and won immunity - and then someone else got voted out specifically because of that. I can't imagine the details, but I'm guessing a player that is more antagonistic (for lack of calling them a "villain") was the beneficiary and a beloved player was the victim.